Swirling Thoughts
by Honour Society
Summary: What's it like to be Jasper Hale? Haven't you ever wanted to know? Canon pairings.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own Twilight, Stephenie Meyer does.

**Author's Note: **This is my first Twilight fanfiction ever and I'm quite nervous. Here's to hoping it doesn't suck to much (clinks glass of champagne). My second update this week: whoot.

**Swirling Thoughts**

_-A_ Twilight_ OneShot by Honour Society-_

Words can get tangled up so easily for humans, being a vampire, especially a Cullen one, has made that problem extinct. Edward reads our thoughts like pages in a book, flipping carelessly from one book to the next. His power of reading minds is similar to a dog-eared collection of short stories, of running thoughts, of humanly desires. Stories with no real plots or complications and stories with more plots and subplots than you could imagine.

I sat on a couch, a butter-soft, copper-coloured contraption with a fold-out futon meant for sleeping on. I've never slept on it, but I just then I squinted my eyes shut tight and tried to remember my human life in the military. The daily trials and tribulations. Human worries. Simple tasks I completed with a great sense of accomplishment that are pointless now.

Struggle. That's the word. If I bothered to look it up in the Oxford English dictionary it would say that struggle is a verb, meaning to overcome a problem. It's little things like that that truly vex me. I've complete high school and university so many times that looking up words is something I hardly ever have to do. Academia comes easily to me.

I crossed my legs and sighed, feeling my eyes blacken as the half-moon looked down upon me. With pity? Sorrow? Disgrace? Not pride, I knew that. Even the moon, which I tended not to think of as an inanimate object, as it was moving and casting a glow and very much part of our Earth, didn't have any pride whatsoever for a bloodthirsty vampire like me.

Privacy is a loose concept in our house, our world. We all close the doors; Rosalie locks hers, but Emmett always knows just how to pick it. We like to pretend that _he's_ not listening — that he's not right now — but we don't delude ourselves either. Keep your private thoughts tucked away, do anything not to think about them. It's hard, though, having to hide even your own thoughts.

When Edward's with Bella, a human who, as of yet, is still breathing because she needs to and pumping fresh warm blood from her heart and has a steady pulse and human feelings like jealousy and hate and envy and melancholy and especially love, If I could hate myself the way some humans can, I would. I would for how I feel when I'm at school, sitting at our lunch table, just staring at the untouched plate of food Alice bought for us to share from the cafeteria, when a petite girl with a blade of grass caught in her sandy-blond bob from early morning soccer practice ruffles her hair and the heaters send a blast of her scent towards me... Or how I felt when Bella cuts her finger and that beautiful, beautiful blood oozes out and all I can think about is biting into her translucently pale neck and getting some of that lovely red liquid for myself.

If Edward is listening now... I don't know what I'd do...

But he's not, I'm about ninety-seven percent sure of that fact. It's ten or eleven o'clock right now. He should be over at Charlie's place by now. Time passes meaninglessly in the hours of late evening and early night. All the other red-blooded (pun intended) American males are out clubbing or cheating on their girlfriends or fretting over college. I'm not. I'm content enough here: just pretending to sleep and attempting to turn off my mind like the light switch I flicked out ages ago.

I would hold out for Alice. I would. No matter how many times I had to bite my lip in History class (hard enough to send a gush of blood, but I was on a strictly "vegetarian" diet, so no blood would flow.) because Fiona Cohen insisted on engaging in thoroughly one-sided flirting matches with me, which involved a lot of throaty laughter (annoying but bearable), hair shaking (very hard to stand, but she seemed not to shampoo every other day like Bella, maybe only once or twice a week because some magazine had told her to) and leaning in _this close _to ask my help with question number two (so hard. But I'd tell myself, over and over, _For Alice, _and I'd wonder if she'd had any visions involving me, Fiona Cohen, an empty classroom and several bloodcurdling screams.)

You see, Alice saved me. I, a wandering soul, the damsel in distress, had been saved by her wonderful and also tragic power to see things others, mortals, could not. Maybe some mortals could, actually. I had never met any; Edward had never heard the thoughts of another (human or vampire) with true power (he'd come across many crackpot frauds wearing jewel-toned turbans and velvet cloaks, however); Alice had never foreseen someone who could...well, foresee... If that was even possible.

_The year was 1948 when I came across Mary Alice Brandon..._ I'll save that story, of how I met Alice, for another time. A time when I shouldn't be sleeping or clubbing. Funny how two night-appropriate things could be so completely different.

My eyes, pitch-black like the night sky, flickered to the modern, museum-type clock. It had only four numbers: twelve, three, six and nine, and they were all done in Roman numerals. The clock was circular and white.

_12: 15. _

"Jasper?" Alice's soft and harmonic voice, like the tinkling of bells or wind chimes, floated through the soft wood panels that made up my door. It was locked. I had the key, here. Somewhere...

"Coming," I replied, just as quietly, if not more so.

Gradually pushing myself off the couch and onto the carpeting, I stalked over to my work desk and plucked the old-style, iron key from the glossy cover of a book Alice had left in my room, the last time she'd been in here. Yesterday. A new edition of Jane Austen's _Mansfield Park_, a tale originally published just twenty-nine years prior to my birth. "Read it," she had commanded. I had yet to open up the cover or crease the mint-condition spine.

"Asleep, were you?" She asked with a hint of a giggle. I shook my head and motioned for her to enter. It felt bizarre to communicate through words. Edward was almost always around, listening to everyone's "private" thoughts, so the few times our mouths had to form actual words it felt alien.

"That's me. Just sawing logs." Our grins were picture-perfect matches and she sat down on the couch I had just been sitting on, seconds ago. She crossed her ankles demurely and swung her shapely legs back and forth. She patted the spot beside her. "Come sit."

I obeyed. For a few moments the two of us were content to just gaze into each other's vampiric eyes. Hers were so pure and gold; the pot at the end of the rainbow. Mine didn't even come close to that.

Sometimes I forgot we were husband and wife. We'd had one wedding, a simple, low-key affair except for the clothes. Alice had worn a beautiful silk and lace-edged dress, tousled her short hair up all prettily and worn the ring with a circle of diamonds on her ring finger, left hand. It was traditional. Perfect. Everything Alice had ever wanted, her special day, so I'd wanted it to.

"I've been thinking a lot about their-"

"Wedding?" I interrupted, not needing to hear the end of her statement. That's all anyone was thinking about around here. Not just in our house either. In all of Forks. Apparently, by all the flack Bella had been getting and the unwanted attention Edward (and, by association,) and all of us had been getting, the Cullen-Swan marriage was to be the wedding of the century. And, if they chose, the next century, and the century after that and so on.

Alice nodded. I could feel the tension in the room because of her, and willed her to relax. Instantly, the air became lighter and her tone friendly and casual. Maybe I couldn't see into the future like she could or read thoughts like Edward could, but I liked to think I brought something special to the table.

"Not only that. Bella becoming a vampire. I mean, obviously she'll live here with us, doing what we've been doing for however many years. It's just... She's a new vampire... Much worse than anything you feel now. We've been strictly vegetarian for a long while; Rosalie's never even tasted human blood! With Bella around us all the time we're all adjusting, but what if... What if Bella's bloodlust has us all going crazy for a little taste of human blood?" As she finished her spiel, I calmed her down a bit. She nodded her head again, in thanks. I could tell that this had been bothering her for a long time.

"You have a point, I guess. But Bella's been family ever since she found out the truth. It's more than we ever had: a choice. The decision to become a vampire. It's what she wants now. Her choice, not ours. If this is what she truly wants, then things will work themselves out. Emmett's strong, surely he can stand being around one who desires human blood. Rosalie, too; you know how stubborn she can be. And you and I? We'll get through this together, like we always do," I said.

Her golden eyes looked up at me through dark eyelashes. "You're right," she sighed, putting her head back on the headrest of my couch. Esme had picked out the furniture and decorated all our rooms. That was her thing. She'd done a good job in making them feel like our own little havens, too.

"And," I continued, "Bella is strong. She can hold her own."

Yet again, Alice nodded her approval. I moved in to kiss her smooth forehead, to kiss away the lines of frustration. Her eyes fluttered closed and she sighed.

"Thanks, Jazz. I needed that. I need you here for me, okay? So, oh, I don't know, if you ever feel like something's bothering you and you just want to get away, tell me. Then we can get away together. Or I'll just have a vision of it. Whatever. You know what I mean." I could tell she was getting upset; Alice was normally upbeat and cheerful (one of my favourite things about her), and this dark and twisty Alice wasn't one I was familiar with.

Just then, we heard a loud string of beatings on my door. Closed and locked again. I shot Alice I look before going up to get it, not bothering to call "Be right there!" or "Coming!" as I had with Alice.

I opened the door and was surprised to find Rosalie, in all her blond glory, swiping away falling tears like someone who'd lost a childhood pet or close grandparent.

"Bella... It's Bella..." Rosalie muttered, distraught evident on her pretty face. Instantly, Alice rose from her seat, scanning through visions of who was talking who to Bella's wedding and who was wearing what to find the source of Rosalie's tears.

"Oh my God," she whispered, tears not yet streaming down her face like they were with Rosalie. "The meadow. Bella's hurt. Edward...gone...to...talk with..." Alice's voice trailed off and a list of possibles entered my mind. Who was Edward talking with? Aro? Tanya? Victoria?

"Who, Alice? Who?" I prodded, turning to face her. Rosalie sniffed and half-raised her hand, like she was going to answer a question in class.

"Jacob Black," Rosalie breathed. Alice closed her eyes and let her vision guide her. For a few moments, the world, the universe, and everything in it was still. I calmed down the room a bit but Alice and Rosalie were fighting it so it didn't work as well as I would've liked it to. Jacob Black? He may have been a werewolf, the natural enemy of vampires, but he'd proven time and again to care for Bella. Or, if not for her soul at least her safety. What could he possibly do?

I wasn't used to fitting into the position of leader; Carlisle or Edward or, at the very least, Emmett, stepped easily into those shoes. My days in the military were long gone. Being the leader wasn't my part of the clan, but, in this dire situation, I found myself slipping back into my old position of Major Whitlock.

"Rosalie, go find Emmett. He's out hunting with Esme, while Carlisle's at the medical conference, right? Go find them. Tell Esme what happened. The whole story. Get Emmett to come back here and don't say a word about Black or the other werewolves. If he gets his hands on them before he's settled down... God only knows what'll happen," I ordered.

Looking rather pleased with me, Rosalie half-smiled, ran her hands through her waves of golden blond and darted out of the house at vampire-speed. I remembered our first year at Forks High School and how Rosalie had, just to prove a point, tried out for the track team, insisted on running with the boys and beating them all. Of course, when Coach Clapp instantly put her on the team, Rosalie's smirk disappeared and she said she didn't really want to.

Alice's eyes snapped open with authority. She had seen something.

"Let's go."

No more nonsense, no more laughs or taunts or musings about our secret worries. Something was really happening and, at that moment, I think all of us had our beliefs, but _no one_ really knew the truth.

"Go?"

"Go save the world."

**Author's Note: **I had originally just wanted this to be a short drabble, with some insight into Jasper's character, his opinions on some topics, etc. But it grew to include Alice and then Rosalie and soon Bella and Edward and Jacob and Esme and Carlisle had wanted in on it, too, and it grew into...well, _this._


End file.
